Malaysian investment, trade and industry (MITI) minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani today said in a speech at the launch of the MCE Auto Hub in Serendah that the government wants carmakers in Malaysia – not just Proton and Perodua – to have local content in their vehicles, and that the rise of fully-imported (CBU) vehicles puts Malaysia’s supplier ecosystem at risk.
“(Proton and Perodua) collectively contribute approximately more than RM15 billion in local purchase value. For many locally-assembled vehicles today, the government wants them to incorporate substantial Malaysian-made content, supported by an increasingly sophisticated supplier base.
“We want every assembly plant coming into this country – not only local car manufacturers – to put a real effort to make sure that there is involvement of local content in every aspect in Malaysia,” he said, adding that the local content must include value creation and not merely be imported parts disguised as localisation.
The MITI minister also said that Malaysia currently has approximately 730 specialised automotive vendors that support an ecosystem which employs over 700,000 people and which contributed RM84 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) last year.
Referring to the Chinese wave (especially EVs) in recent years, he said: “During this period, Malaysia’s trade deficit in motor vehicles as well as parts and components has widened significantly, from RM13 billion in 2020 to RM33.8 billion in 2025.”
“Without a strategic and forward-looking response, there is a real risk that imports could further dominate the market and mount increasing pressure on our domestic supplier ecosystem. We must safeguard the over 700,000 jobs that support this ecosystem,” he added.
The integration of local vendors into carmakers’ supply chains would enable Malaysia to progressively move up the value chain beyond simply assembling imported kits to higher-value activities like engineering, systems integration and component development, Johari said.
“In a broader regional context, Malaysia should not seek to compete on volume alone. Our ambition is to become the ASEAN hub for automotive intelligence, which includes finding our niche in automotive electronics, semiconductor integration and complex mechatronics. Those are the industries that generate higher wages, deeper technological capability and long-term economic resilience,” he added.
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BN crony always scamming the rakyat.
Again. Creating a non existent industry and forcing everyone to pay more for subpar parts
Actually we really don’t give a shit of local parts/suppliers. Thr quality is sub standard and selling at a high price because we don’t have the economy of scales here. China has all these so why bother? In terms of jobs, if we can’t create from this sector look else where. Don’t keep beating on a dead horse at the rakyats expense
Kita sedia maklum yg CKD punya kualiti amatlah mendukacitakan a.k.a mengkayakan kroni2 shj.
X payah nak kencing rakyat lah dgn bg pelbagai alasan cliché utk menghalalkan kegiatan palat tu.
Aku tuntut kat akhirat kelak dgn kualiti CKD yg sub-par tu.
Proton EVs all locally made parts mehh?? Hypocrites.
He is very good
BS lah, wait for the day when all foreign brands stop selling here. Then maybe minister needs to drive in a P1 or P2?
good one jojo, our cronies can count on you, i mean country..
It is sad we have minister like this who is not good in maths. Of course both P1 and P2 have higher local content, they are both considered national brands (although Geely and Daihatsu own many shares). If he is not good in math I show him, in 2025 both P1 and P2 total sales is 511k out of 870k total car sales or 59% market share. The next 2 brands are Toyota 15% and Honda 8.7% share whle Chery group in 5th with 3.5% market share.
Imagine out of top 5 the other carmakers share in Malaysia is relatively small and asking them to put higher local content is truly burden because they can’t achieve large economies of scale to bring down the cost by selling more products. They need gov to support to increase their sales volume only then they capable to increase local content. In Miti role someone need to be good in financial and economy sense.
Johorean, u sure want to vote for BN….good luck
What ever MITI said it’s full of bull shit
other brand will auto consider local brand or local manufactured parts if they are up to their standard..
If the product is poor, no point to force them to use local aka crony brand product la